When I try to do the necessary steps on drive d:\ (home edition upgraded to Pro) to update the driver and install Realtek AC97 the system stalls and no job is done. On drive c:\ (xp pro) I will check the situation later after logging out from d:\ and add a note about it to this thread.

Can anyone of you help me to sort out this issue ? as I can't listen to music while I do work on this pc. Thank you.

Hi FlamingClaw,
Thank you for your suggestion though first of all I have to apologize for the long silence.
In the meantime that HD in 2 partitions has all of the sudden gone: DEAD! I believe I have tried too many times to install Realtek's driver and each time getting those horrible a blue screens

Now I have a brand new HD on this machine on which I reinstall my XP Professional, of course, and guess what? no sound driver. I tried Robot and updated all drivers including audio and you wouldn't believe the Realtek-AC97 was included in the package and again the same story: the system stalled followed by a blue screen.

I have two other PC's Fujitsu Siemens and on both there are no problems at all. Even Realtek AC97 has been installed on Scenic by myself without incurring in similar issues.

Honestly, I didn't get your suggestion to loggin in C: and then what?
If I start from Device Manager and want to get rid of the yellow question mark, the system start installing Realtek AC97 which I immediately stop as I am scared to death to have another crash and blue screen on my brand new HD.

Some time ago I have same problem:) and the only one solution was to reinstall operating system ! Good luck !

Hi reganstar,

Sorry for long silence but this issue is still pending for a solution. Reinstalling XP has never been the solution on my PC FS D1625 because after damaging the HD and installing XP Pro on a brand new one with 400GB HD the no sound, no audio issue is still there.

I have finally the solution and solved the problem.
I knew that this FS machine D1625 does only support its own FS audio device short named "Analog". In fact, "Analog Device AD198x" was already downloaded by me but apparently was not opening up and this because Realtek as sort of spy/bug, acting in the background, did not made space for Analog to get properly installed. I checked In Explore where the drivers are set in C:\ and found 3 Analog identical downloadings. I expanded one to get the entire package split into several icons, I clicked on Set-Up and the system first asked me to reboot and then the system now free to run automatically installed the new FS Audio Device. PROBLEM SOLVED thanks to a hint given to me by a FS clever guy! The hint was that it would have been difficult to instal the proper driver as I had already "infected" the system by having installed previsouly Realtek 97'AC and despite having uninstalled it, Realtek was still silently present in the background as a spy/bug. I was also told by Microsoft that this is an issue caused by Realtek for which there is no solution. Realtek in China never replied to my various appeals for help.

I hope this will help others to sort out similar issues. The moral is that one can safely install a sound device only when approved by the MB manufacturer.